Monthly Archives: March 2011

I wrote here about the sinister symbiosis between contemptible left-wing web sites and the supposedly respectable liberal press. The specific subject of the post, titled Anatomy of a Smear, was the left’s attacks on Congressman Mike Pompeo, a former soldier who ranked first in his class at West Point and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and who, after a successful career as an entrepreneur, now represents Kansas’s »

Rich Lowry cruelly asks: “Is it a war or a Marx Brothers comedy?” I believe that the Obama administration’s position is that it is neither. Rather, Rich is positing what the president likes to condemn as “a false choice.” Like others whom the president condemns in this fashion, however, Rich is on to something. He links to the New York Times article by Thom Shanker and Charlie Savage reporting that »

Back on March 16 I wrote here about “The Progressive Dilemma,” by which I meant the liberals who were starting to wake up to the fact that the rapacity of public employee unions was threatening to undermine the welfare state itself by pillaging the funding for social service programs. Today the indispensable Dan Henniger notes in his weekly “Wonderland” column in the Wall Street Journal more of this kind of »

As you may have heard, the Israel Defense Force has declassified maps showing their assessment of the locations of Hezbollah bunkers, weapons facilities and surveillance posts in the village of El-Khiam, north of the Israeli border. Having just recently been looking at that village–from the southern side of the border–I was particularly interested to see this. Judith Levy’s analysis of the IDF’s decision to release these maps right now seems »

In a post here last week I expressed puzzlement and potential objection about the constitutional ambiguities of the command structure of our multinational Libyan enterprise. I wasn’t concerned as much about whether our involvement requires congressional approval or not, though Lee Casey and David Rivkin, two of the right’s favorite popular legal commentators, argued that Obama does not. Well, one of my gurus in the area of international law, Michael »

Six weeks after the Libyan revolt began and two weeks after the U.N. Security Council authorized a no-fly zone and the U.S. and others intervened on behalf of the rebels, the Obama administration has decided it had better find out who its new allies are. The Washington Post reports: The Obama administration has sent teams of CIA operatives into Libya in a rush to gather intelligence on the identities and »

William McGowan is the prominent journalist and author, most recently, of Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America. The book authoritatively covers the important and interesting subject suggested in its subtitle. Glenn Reynolds hailed the book in the excellent lead review of the January 24, 2011, issue of National Review. Glenn wrote: “McGowan piles up incident after incident demonstrating beyond dispute »

Yesterday at noon National Review posted a good editorial on the next front in the battle of Wisconsin: the election pitting incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser against Joanne Kloppenburg. Kloppenburg has all but vowed to toe the union line on the budget repair bill if she makes it to the court. Her campaign is inimical to the rule of law, and the larger campaign supporting her is, as »

The Hill reports that Republican and Democratic negotiators may be getting close to a deal on FY 2011 spending: A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working toward a target of $33 billion in spending cuts. The $33 billion goal splits the difference between $30 billion in cuts Senate Democrats have proposed and $36 billion in cuts Boehner suggested in talks »

The Obama administration has been reading the polls, and is panicked by the implications of $4 a gallon gasoline. Consequently, President Obama gave a speech today in which he trotted out a “Blueprint For A Secure Energy Future.” We will have more to say about the administration’s proposals, which I don’t think contain anything new, but for the moment, I want to note the dishonesty with which President Obama introduced »

The Minneapolis Star Tribune leads off its letters to the editor today with one from Power Line reader Dave Conklin of Victoria, Minnesota. Mr. Conklin wrote to comment on the Star Tribune article “Dayton rejects piecemeal budget bills from GOP.” addressing the ongoing budget struggle between Democratic Governor Mark Dayton and the Republican majorities in the state legislature. Here is the Conklin letter to the editor as published by the »

The polls are looking bad for President Obama these days. Today, Quinnipiac released a survey showing Obama at his lowest ebb yet among voters: American voters disapprove 48 – 42 percent of the job President Barack Obama is doing and say 50 – 41 percent he does not deserve to be re-elected in 2012, both all-time lows, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. The survey covers Libya, but »

Today is being well remembered as the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton. In my second Age of Reagan volume I offer the following observations: The shooting and near death of President Reagan on that March afternoon provides another occasion for reflection on the radical contingency of human affairs and for counterfactual “what-if” speculation. What if Winston Churchill had been killed when he »

Until I read Howie Carr’s Boston Herald column this morning, I had missed the big news from Brown University. Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy has graciously accepted a two-year appointment as a visiting fellow at the Brown Institute for Brain Science, through the 2012-13 academic year. Carr cruelly comments: “I guess the rocket-science school was full up. He is quite the scholar, of course.” Carr quotes Kennedy speaking on the »

Last week we posted Peter Robinson’s interview with Victor Davis Hanson and Peter Berkowtiz. Given our format, the interview rotated off the site after a few days. We’ll have another installment of Uncommon Knowledge next week. In the meantime, here is the interview with Hanson and Berkowitz, once more once, after a brief introduction. Peter Robinson convened a panel consisting of Victor Davis Hanson and Peter Berkowitz — Hoover Institution »

We live in a neighborhood with quite a bit of wildlife. We see coyotes, foxes, deer of course, and lots of birds: eagles, hawks, wild turkeys, owls and many more. Last summer we had to deal with a hawk that tried to build a nest on our house. This spring it’s an owl–a great horned owl, I’m not sure whether he has a mate or not. But we hear him »

CNN Money reports on a fascinating study of tax cheaters. For some reason, considerable numbers of people admit that they cheat on their income taxes. This study tried to assemble information about who they are: The typical American tax cheat is male, single and under the age of 45. … These percentages were all significantly higher for the self-proclaimed cheaters than for the non-cheaters, indicating that Americans who cheat on »